Music of Migrants

Blowout concerts by Britney Spears and Prince are the place to be in the glitzy Arabian capital of Abu Dhabi. But what happens in the city’s other music venues – the ones that cater to the United Arab Emirates’ migrant populations who arrive with a much different musical reference point?

By Gaar Adams | Beacon | September 26, 2013

Forget about his reckless speeding along Abu Dhabi’s coastal highway: my pudgy Keralite taxi driver is much more concerned by his unshakeable belief that he and I are in the middle of a calamitous misunderstanding. Furrowing his dark unibrow, he dials down the Malayali radio station blaring from his blown out speakers and stares at me in the rearview mirror. Again, he asks me the same question he’s repeated three times now, but with this final try, his words are slower and more deliberate…